I’m trying to play some catch-up — it was getting a little crazy for a while — I think I had 6 patterns on the go!

Well, now I’m down to 3 and have had to stop myself from starting a new one until at least one more is published. That will probably be the little pink hat!

Meet Peony MaireiI finished writing what I think is the final draft of the pattern last night.

Now, this pattern is based on another design — the Gomphidius Violet — so since all of the numbers were worked out already for the sizing, I’m leaning toward not having this one test knit. This too is made of Green Mountain Spinnery’s Cotton Comfort — 20% organic cotton, 80% fine wool in a DK weight — very nice yarn to work with.

Celtic Jenna Rose TopThe Celtic knot centrepiece is being test knit as I write. The written pattern is in its second draft.

In the picture you can see how the initial cross-over (ecru – inside the circle) didn’t work out so I took some scrap yarn (purple) to rework just that section. (This happened in more than one spot as I worked out this design!!!) As you can see just above the circled area, my cross over/under was messed up too!!

Save the good yarnThese samples were worked in scrap acrylic yarn in a weight similar to the final yarn I was planning on using — Bernat Soy Natural Blends: 50% Soy, 50% Acrylic. When I know I’m going to be working and reworking a design area, I usually don’t use the final project yarn; I save that to knit the actual sample that will be photographed for the published pattern.

And last but not least:

Baby Irish SweaterMy original plan was to knit this as a no-seam design — nobody seems to like sewing up sweater seams! I’m still trying to work that out — the multiple sizing is providing some challenges when paired with the cabling patterns.

For the initial design process, I divided the sweater front, back and sleeves into sections (see picture) and assigned cable designs to each section.

This picture shows the second draft; my original had an extra cabling pattern included in the 2 side panels but when I actually worked out the gauge and stitch counts, there was no way I could include all of the patterns — the sweater just wasn’t wide enough!

I created charts for each of the sections — all of the cable patterns are either 2-row or 4-row repeats so the charts themselves are small. I am about to embark on writing the instructions that will look like….hmmmm…..I’m not sure what yet! I’m toying with the idea of using a garment map ( I just made that term up — I have no idea if there is such a thing or if it means something else to other people 😉 — or write it out; pictures always seem so much faster to interpret. I could easily make a garment map for each size, avoiding the confusion of reading directions for multiple sizes. We’ll just have to watch this one unfold.

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